The Warrior Prophet (68 page)

Read The Warrior Prophet Online

Authors: R. Scott Bakker

Inri Sejenus …
Then why this shame? This anguish? Why this relentless, heart-mauling doubt?
Doubt. In a sense, that had been Achamian’s single lesson. Geometry, logic, history, mathematics using Nilnameshi numbers, even philosophy! —all these things were dross, Achamian would argue, in the face of doubt. Doubt had made them, and doubt would unmake them.
Doubt, he would say, set men free …
Doubt,
not truth!
Beliefs were the foundation of actions. Those who believed without doubting, he would say, acted without thinking. And those who acted without thinking were enslaved.
That was what Achamian would say.
Once, after listening to his beloved older brother, Tirummas, describe his harrowing pilgrimage to the Sacred Land, Proyas had told Achamian how he wished to become a Shrial Knight.
“Why?” the portly Schoolman had exclaimed.
They’d been strolling through the gardens—Proyas could remember bounding from leaf to fallen leaf just to hear them crackle beneath his sandals. They stopped near the immense iron oak that dominated the garden’s heart.
“So I can kill heathens on the Empire’s frontier!”
Achamian tossed his hands skyward in dismay. “Foolish boy! How many faiths are there? How many competing beliefs? And you would
murder
another on the slender hope that yours is somehow the
only
one?”
“Yes! I have
faith!
”
“Faith,” the Schoolman repeated, as though recalling the name of a hated foe. “Ask yourself, Prosha … What if the choice isn’t between certainties, between this faith and that, but between faith and
doubt?
Between renouncing the mystery and embracing it?”
“But doubt is weakness!” Proyas cried. “Faith is strength! Strength!” Never, he was convinced, had he felt so holy as at that moment. The sunlight seemed to shine straight through him, to bathe his heart.
“Is it? Have you looked around you, Prosha? Pay attention, boy. Watch and tell me how many men, out of weakness,
lapse
into the practice of doubt. Listen to those around you, and tell me what you see …”
He did exactly as Achamian had asked. For several days, he watched and listened. He saw much hesitation, but he wasn’t so foolish as to confuse that with doubt. He heard the caste-nobles squabble and the hereditary priests complain. He eavesdropped on the soldiers and the knights. He observed embassy after embassy posture before his father, making claim after florid claim. He listened to the slaves joke as they laundered, or bicker as they ate. And in the midst of innumerable boasts, declarations, and accusations, only rarely did he hear those words Achamian had made so familiar, so commonplace … The words Proyas himself found so difficult! And even then, they belonged most to those Proyas considered wise, even-handed, compassionate, and least to those he thought stupid or malicious.
“I don’t know.”
Why were these words so difficult?
“Because men want to murder,” Achamian had explained afterward. “Because men want their gold and their glory. Because they want beliefs that
answer
to their fears, their hatreds, and their hungers.”
Proyas could remember the heart-pounding wonder, the exhilaration of straying …
“Akka?” He took a deep, daring breath. “Are you saying the Tusk
lies?
”
A look of dread. “I don’t know …”
Difficult words, so difficult they would see Achamian banished from Aöknyssus and Proyas tutored by Charamemas, the famed Shrial scholar. And Achamian had known this would happen … Proyas could see that now.
Why? Why would Achamian, who was already damned, sacrifice so much for so few words?
He thought he was giving me something … Something important.
Drusas Achamian had loved him. What was more, he’d loved him so deeply he’d imperilled his position, his reputation—even his vocation, if what Xinemus had said was true. Achamian had given without hope of reward.
He wanted me to be free.
And Proyas had given him away, thinking only of rewards.
The thought was too much to bear.
I did it for the Holy War! For Shimeh!
And now this letter—from Maithanet.
He snatched up the parchment, scanned it once again, as though the Shriah’s manly script might offer some answer …
“Assist Drusas Achamian …”
What had happened? The Scarlet Spires he could understand, but what use could the Shriah of the Thousand Temples have with a Schoolman? And with a
Mandate
Schoolman, no less …
A sudden chill dropped through him. Beneath the black walls of Momemn, Achamian had once argued that the Holy War wasn’t what it seemed … Was this letter proof of that fact?
Something had frightened, or at least concerned, Maithanet. But what?
Had he heard rumours of Prince Kellhus? For weeks now, Proyas had meant to write the Shriah regarding the Prince of Atrithau, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to put ink to parchment. Something compelled him to wait, but whether it was hope or fear he couldn’t determine. Kellhus simply struck him as one of those mysteries that could only be resolved through patience. And besides, what would he say? That the Holy War
for
the Latter Prophet was witnessing the birth of a
Latter
Latter Prophet?
As much as he was loath to admit it, Conphas was right: the notion was simply too absurd!
No. If the Holy Shriah harboured reservations concerning Prince Kellhus, Proyas was fairly confident he would’ve simply asked. As it was, there wasn’t so much as a hint, let alone mention, of the Prince of Atrithau in the letter. Chances were Maithanet had no inkling of Kellhus’s existence, let alone his growing stature.
No, Proyas decided. It must be something else … Something the Shriah thought beyond his tolerance or his ken. Otherwise, why not explain his reasons?
Could it be the Consult?
“The Dreams,” Achamian had said at Momemn. “They’ve been so forceful of late.”
“Ah, back to the nightmares again …”
“Something is happening, Proyas. I know it. I
feel
it!”
Never had he looked so desperate.
Could it be?
No. It was too absurd. Even if they did exist, how could the Shriah find them when the Mandate themselves couldn’t?
No … It had to be the
Scarlet Spires
. After all, that had been Achamian’s mission, hadn’t it? Watch the Scarlet Spires …
Proyas yanked at his hair and snarled under his breath.
Why?
Why couldn’t this one thing be pure? Why must everything holy—
everything!
—be riddled by tawdry and despicable intent?
He sat very still, drawing breath after shuddering breath. He imagined drawing his sword, slashing and hacking wildly through his chambers, howling and shrieking … Then he collected himself to the beat of his own pulse.
Nothing pure … Love transformed into betrayal. Prayers bent into accusations.
This was Maithanet’s point, wasn’t it? The holy followed upon the wicked.
Proyas had thought himself the moral leader of the Holy War. But now he knew better. Now he knew he was merely one more piece upon the benjuka plate. The players were perhaps known to him—the Thousand Temples, House Ikurei, the Scarlet Spires, the Cishaurim, and perhaps even Kellhus—but the
rules,
which were the most treacherous element of any game of benjuka, were definitely not known.
I don’t know. I don’t know anything.
The Holy War had only triumphed, and yet never had he felt so desperate.
So weak.
I told you, old tutor. I told you …
As though stirring from a stupor, Proyas called for Algari, his old Cironji body-slave, and bid the man to bring him his writing chest. As tired as he was, he had no choice but to answer the Shriah now. Tomorrow the Holy War marched into the desert.
For some reason, after unlatching the small mahogany and ivory chest and running his fingers over the quill and curled parchment, Nersei Proyas felt like a young boy once again, about to begin his writing drills under Achamian’s hawkish but all-forgiving eyes. He could almost feel the sorcerer’s friendly shadow, looming watchfully over his boy-slender shoulders.
“That House Nersei could produce a boy so daft!”
“That the School of Mandate could send a tutor so blind!”
Proyas almost laughed his tutor’s world-wise laugh.
And tears clotted his eyes as he completed the first line of his baffled reply to Maithanet.
… but it would seem, Your Eminence, that Drusas Achamian is dead.
 
Esmenet smiled, and Kellhus saw through her olive skin, through the play of muscles over bone, all the way to the abstract point that described her soul.
She knows I see her, Father.
The campsite bustled with activity and rumbled with open-hearted conversation. The Holy War was about to march across the deserts of Khemema, and Kellhus had invited all fourteen of his senior Zaudunyani, which meant “the Tribe of Truth” in Kûniüric, to his fire. They already knew their mission; Kellhus need only remind them of what he promised. Beliefs alone didn’t control the actions of men. There was also
desire,
and these men, his apostles, must shine with that desire.
The Thanes of the Warrior-Prophet.
Esmenet sat across from him on the far side of the fire, laughing and chatting with her neighbours, Arweal and Persommas, her face flushed with a joy she wouldn’t have dared imagine and couldn’t yet dare admit. Kellhus winked at her, then looked to the others, smiling, laughing, calling out …
Scrutinizing. Dominating.
Each was a riotous font of significance. The downcast eyes, quickened heart, and fumbling words of Ottma spoke to the overpowering presence of Serwë, who blithely gossiped at his side. The momentary sneer the instant before Ulnarta smiled meant he still disapproved of Tshuma because he feared the blackness of his skin. The way Kasalla, Gayamakri, and Hilderath oriented their shoulders toward Werjau, even while speaking to others, meant they still considered him to be first among them. And indeed, the way Werjau tended to call across the fire more and more, leaning forward with his palms down, while the others generally restricted their conversation to those beside them, spoke to the assertion of unconscious relations of dominance and submission. Werjau even thrust out his chin …
“Tell me, Werjau,” Kellhus called out. “What is it you see within your heart?”
Such interventions were inevitable. These were world-born men.
“Joy,” Werjau said, smiling. Faint deadening about the eyes. Flare in pulse. Blush reflex.
He sees, and he doesn’t see.
Kellhus compressed his lips, rueful and forbearing. “And what is it I see?”
This he knows …
The sound of other voices trailed into silence.
Werjau lowered his eyes.
“Pride,” the young Galeoth said. “You see pride, Master.”
Kellhus grinned, and the anxiety was swept from them.
“Not,” he said, “with that face, Werjau.”
All of them, including Serwë and Esmenet, howled with laughter, and Kellhus glanced around the fire, satisfied. He could tolerate no posturing among them. It was the utter absence of presumption that made his company so utterly unique, that made their hearts leap and their stomachs giddy at the prospect of seeing him. The weight of sin was found in secrecy and condemnation. Strip these away, deny men their deceptions and their judgements, and their self-sense of shame and worthlessness simply vanished.
They felt greater in his presence, both pure and
chosen
.

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